Making lasagna with homemade bolognese – my recipe:

1/8 stick butter
1/8 cup olive oil
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 celery stick, finely chopped
Half tablespoon each basil, mint (both fresh if available), red pepper flakes – 1/4 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste
Half lb. Beef – finest kind/grind; ½ lb. Pork – finest kind/grind
6-8 oz. of thick-cut bacon, chopped
1 can tomato paste
3/4 cup red wine
1 ½ cups beef stock
1.5 cups ricotta
8 oz. small curd cottage cheese
one or two egg yolks
grated  parmesan for the top (if you want)
1/4 cup cream (optional)

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Title: “I Am A Pole (And So Can You!)”

Author: Stephen Colbert

Rank: 34

Blurb: “The sad thing is, I like it!” —Maurice Sendak

Reader Review Spectacular!

“This book should not be read to children. There is one page that illustrates a stripper humping a pole with only tassels on her nipples.”

“Then I got to the stripper pole, and the quite graphically drawn cartoon stripper right down to the tassels and heart tattoo on the ankle… I can’t imagine how many kids won’t get to read this book because of that page.”

“I was not prepared to discuss strippers with my 4-year-old daughter. This picture book is not for small children.”

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzK3ZX7hvzg

So, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney is out with what is being described as his first television ad of the general election (as opposed to the primaries). You can see it embedded above. And although the ad has been met with generally favorable reviews among the commenting classes, I would submit that this fact says less about the ad itself than about just how vacuous our politics has become and how toothless and irrelevant the fourth estate has become.

Because an honest appraisal of what the ad says can only leave the informed viewer shaking his head at a 30 second video that is, at heart, little more than a agglomeration of nonsense, deliberately hollow vagueness and political farce. Promising to describe what a Romney presidency would look like from “day one” the ad describes three policies that Mitt Romney would take that would distinguish him from the President. Let’s take a look at these proposals one by one: Read more »

When Fresh Air ends, Terry Gross stops being polite, and starts getting real.

[via Silent Creative Partner]

Santorum is my favorite (NSFW):

[Breitbart]

“The man in charge of running Arizona’s elections has gone to the birthers. Secretary of State Ken Bennett now says he’s not convinced Barack Obama was really born in the United States and so he is threatening to keep the president off the ballot in November.” [TPM]